Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Whoever he was, that guy was nuts.

The poor and middle-class pay taxes, the rich pay accountants, the wealthy pay politicians.

Putting aside our relentless self-interest because the moral imperative is crystal clear.

Impressively dumb. Congratulations.

Balloon Juice has never been a refuge for the linguistically delicate.

And we’re all out of bubblegum.

The party of Reagan has become the party of Putin.

Too often we confuse noise with substance. too often we confuse setbacks with defeat.

Accused of treason; bitches about the ratings. I am in awe.

A democracy can’t function when people can’t distinguish facts from lies.

If you are still in the GOP, you are an extremist.

After roe, women are no longer free.

Pessimism assures that nothing of any importance will change.

They’re not red states to be hated; they are voter suppression states to be fixed.

You can’t love your country only when you win.

Not so fun when the rabbit gets the gun, is it?

People are complicated. Love is not.

T R E 4 5 O N

Infrastructure week. at last.

Is it negotiation when the other party actually wants to shoot the hostage?

… riddled with inexplicable and elementary errors of law and fact

The worst democrat is better than the best republican.

Damn right I heard that as a threat.

Let’s delete this post and never speak of this again.

You are here: Home / Jan 6: Hearings / Hearing Reax

Hearing Reax

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[Photo source: @RonFilipkowski]

Well, that happened!

Did y’all catch how Liz Cheney clowned the ever-lovin’ fuck out of Kushner? She set the scene by observing how rare and serious it is for White House counsel to threaten to resign. Then she played the clip of the impossibly smug, self-righteous prick Jared talking about how he was so busy sifting through stacks of paperwork from crooks seeking a pardon while brushing off the White House counsel’s resignation threats as “whining.” Then Cheney emphasized it after the clip by incredulously quoting Kushner: “whining.”

If Javanka cooperated with the committee as part of a rehab tour so they can get the fuck out of South Beach and return to NYC, that bit backfired stupendously, IMO. (Also, that pair of photos should illustrate dictionary definitions of “Uncanny Valley.”)

As we know, the committee has several objectives for the hearings, which include creating a historical record and making the case for electoral reforms so the next would-be autocrat will find it more difficult to subvert an election. But to my non-lawyer ears, the overwhelming takeaway was that Trump had criminal intent and is therefore legally culpable for the insurrection.

Open thread (until another one comes along).

Reader Interactions

147Comments

  2. 2.

    Suzanne

    Yep, I still hate them. Just as much as ever.

    Good to know I can still hate this much.

  3. 3.

    There go two miscreants

    Oh, come on! Many of us are eating breakfast!! Seeing those two is like finding a dog turd on the kitchen floor!

  4. 4.

    Geo

    Ivanka looks like a sex doll and Jared looks like he has to pinch off a loaf. Gad what horrid people.,

  5. 5.

    Betty Cracker

    Maybe it’s the sour facial expression — as if he just caught a whiff of a fresh turd — but Kushner looks like he’s morphing into that odious, thin-skinned Substacker who occupies a compound in Brazil.

  9. 9.

    Lapassionara

    Oh my, that sneer! Trying to decide if that expression makes a Met Gala invite more or less likely in the future.

    they are trash.

  13. 13.

    Geminid

    I’ll be interested to see if former White House Counsel Anthony Pasquale “Pat” Cippoline testifies in public. He was Trump’s advocate in one of the impeachment trials (I believe the first one). Reporting is that Trump and his henchmen had to work around Cippoline and his staff after the election, and that Cippoline also put the brakes on widespread pardons. Cippoline was interviewed extensively by the Commitee’s staff, and I think he has a lot of tea to spill. So does former Acting Attorney General Rosen.

  15. 15.

    Betty Cracker

    @Geminid: Trump granted the most egregiously corrupt pardons in history, so I wonder which potential pardons Cippoline thwarted! The entire Manson family?

  17. 17.

    Andrew Abshier

    Yeah, Cheney’s bit after Jared’s smug testimony was epic.   She’s still evil in many ways but she was an absolute giant last night.

  19. 19.

    Immanentize

    @Betty Cracker: Not the Manson family (who seem like nice people)* but rather the entire Trump family.

    *As Jim Carroll sang:
    “It’s too late
    To fall in love with Sharron Tate.”

  21. 21.

    Ohio Mom

    @Andrew Abshier: Cheney is just as evil and ruthless as ever, life/the universe has given her an opportunity to channel her cold-heartedness in a productive way.

  22. 22.

    Tony Jay

    Nice to see they slammed Jared up against the cell wall a couple of times before stuffing a camera in his face. Really brings out that “Unhand me or I will summon my driver!” moue common to the minor villain in most mid-80s Michael J Fox vehicles.

    And Ivanka? Sheesh. All that money, all that work, and she still looks a display model for Amazon’s Complimentary Pre-inflated Companion range.

  24. 24.

    Kay

    Trump and Jared had contempt for the administration employees but they weren’t wrong about that.
    It WAS transactional.
    Conservatives wanted the judges, or they wanted the tax cuts, or they wanted the MAGA voters, so they traded everything for those things.
    It’s hugely cynical, sure, but Republican appointees and electeds are also hugely cynical. Again and again and again they gave Trump what he wanted because they wanted something from him. This was a two way street. Trump saw the lack of character and weakness on the Right and exploited it. He had an accurate read of them.

  26. 26.

    O. Felix Culpa

    @Baud:

    Hehe. Yes, they will. Jared managed to out-douche himself in that clip, which was no easy feat.

  28. 28.

    Kay

    Jared believed the administration lawyers would fold and abandon their oaths because they had folded and abandoned their oaths at every other decision point. He saw them as weak because they are weak.

  29. 29.

    Tony Jay

    @eclare: 

    Sometimes I like to step away from the British Bestiary of Conservative Creatures and dwell a while on the American strain. Those two are just begging for a legal-because-accurate slandering.

  30. 30.

    Ohio Mom

    One day those two are going to be featured in one of those clickbaits about celebrities who ruined their faces with too much plastic surgery.

  31. 31.

    Bruce K in ATH-GR

    My thought about Cheney the Younger is:

    Her angle to this point has obviously been that she wants to destroy the Trumpists and take charge of a post-Trumpist GOP, and push for the agenda of her father and his allies from that point forward.

    If she comes to the conclusion many of us have reached, that the Republican Party is too far gone to be allowed to survive in a democratic America, what will she choose?

  33. 33.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    Someone mentioned Peter Baker. Here’s a quote from him this morning:

    In the entire 246-year history of the United States, there was surely never a more damning indictment presented against an American president than outlined on Thursday night in a cavernous congressional hearing room where the future of democracy felt on the line.

  34. 34.

    O. Felix Culpa

    @Bruce K in ATH-GR: 

    If she comes to the conclusion many of us have reached, that the Republican Party is too far gone to be allowed to survive in a democratic America, what will she choose?

    Good question. I get the impression that she genuinely recognizes the threat to democracy that Trumpism poses. Her comments last night suggests that she also thinks the same of many (most?) of her Republican erstwhile colleagues. Does her contempt and understanding of the threat extend to the entire party? Don’t know, but she is clearly no dummy.

  35. 35.

    Kay

    Maggie Haberman
    @maggieNYT
    ·17m
    The key: As Kushner and Ivanka left the work of talking to Trump about his power grab to paid staff, those staff tried to avoid the Oval Office, fearful of Trump’s temper or, worse, being given an order that would ensare them in an investigation

    But nobody breaks ranks publicly or tells the public that there’s an authoritarian madman in the White House who is dead set on retaining power, nobody does anything other than “avoid the Oval Office”.
    Trump knew they wouldn’t do anything. Hannitty with his fantasy about conservatives invoking the 25th amendment- they weren’t going to do shit. In fact, more than a hundred of them eagerly joined in to vote against certifying and embarked on a national tour to lie about the election.

  36. 36.

    O. Felix Culpa

    @Dorothy A. Winsor:

    Wow. So many people have been asking if the hearings would be worth it. The answer is yes, if the Peter Bakers of the world shift their narrative like this. Hopefully it holds.

  38. 38.

    Tony Jay

    @Dorothy A. Winsor:

    And he’s right.

    It casts an entirely unforgiving light on the oh-so privileged latitude afforded to everyone on the Right that when they raised a proto-Revolutionary mob to storm the Capitol and kill people in furtherance of a conspiracy to overthrown the legitimate Government of the United States of America… the response of most journalists and pundits has been “Yeah, but that was sooooo many news cycles ago.“

  40. 40.

    O. Felix Culpa

    @Kay:

    they weren’t going to do shit.

    Sadly true. Knaves and cowards, all.

    Responding to a comment of yours from last night, I too had worried that the hearing might be too slick. Thankfully it wasn’t. I was impressed with how it hit the right notes, professionally and effectively.

  42. 42.

    Wakeshift

    My reaction summary last night immediately after the hearing, as texted to a couple friends:

    important and powerful without being hyperbolic or even electrifying

    most importantly, i remain sober.

    i would summarize the strategy as
    defang and disarm repug talking points and counterprogramming, paint a clear picture with assholes’ own words and deeds, and demonstrate that we are the side of civilization against this feral unthinking mob of violent sore loser assholes.

    We’re not angry, spiteful, and vindictive (we are, but without the spittle-flecked incoherent rage), instead this is a calm, organized, clear, reality-based assessment with due process and verified facts.
    They screamed obscenity, bludgeoned and trampled people to death, and literally smeared shit on the walls.
    And they did it in answer to the calls of their dear leader and all the encitement and amplification of their partei for hours, days, months, decades.

    Ds = civilization
    MAGAs and most Rs = barbarian tantrum throwers

    We’re a 2-party system, and only one party believes in the system.
    The bet is enough of the mushy indifferent middle look at crazy vs sane and reject crazy.
    I get that there’s a lot of push to “fight back” “get dirty” etc.
    This is calculated to win a majority who want shit to basically work.

    Cheney gonna lose her election (maybe), but has made herself the leader of whatever reality-based successor party cobbles itself together. She’s rolling the dice too.
    Not too worried for her if she loses her bet, but if she wins at least she’s an opponent and not an enemy.

  44. 44.

    Snarki, child of Loki

    @Ohio Mom: 

    One day those two are going to be featured in one of those clickbaits about celebrities who ruined their faces with too much plastic surgery.

    And you should see the portraits they hide in the attic!

  48. 48.

    Immanentize

    @Gin & Tonic: She was clearly going for the “weeping angel in marble” cemetery piece look.

    I think she pulled it off nicely.

    N.b. catty Baloon Juice is the BEST Baloon Juice!

  51. 51.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    From Meredith McGraw on twitter. She reads so you don’t have to.

    The morning after the first Jan 6 heading, Trump is on Truth Social going after Bill Barr. He also says his daughter Ivanka was not involved in looking at the election results as she had “long since checked out” and claims he never said “hang Mike Pence.”

  54. 54.

    artem1s

    @Ohio Mom: ​
     

    One day those two are going to be featured in one of those clickbaits about celebrities who ruined their faces with too much plastic surgery.

    One day? they are already well past having actual human features IMO. that any girl child aspires to look that way is a sad indicator of exactly how bereft of common sense the ‘billionaire’ social set are.

  56. 56.

    Geminid

    @Betty Cracker: Congressmen Scott Perry and Matt Gaetz were two of a number of people whose pardon requests were denied. Cippoline may give more names if he testifies. Or his interview may be included in the Commitee’s report, which be a long one.

    I was interested to see reporting that while Gaetz wanted a pardon for himself, he discouraged action on the request of Seminole County Tax Collector Joel Greenberg, his “wingman” and the principal witness against him on sex trafficking and other charges. Last month Greenberg’s sentencing was postponed again and now it looks like it will be in August. Prosecutors seem to be making progress securing other witnesses. They need to because Greenberg is so shady a jury would not convict Gaetz on Greenberg’s testimony alone.

  57. 57.

    Betty Cracker

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: A Twitter mutual included an image of Trump’s ersatz tweet* about Ivanka’s comments. He sounds enraged. More so than usual even!

    *I’m amazed Twitter doesn’t sue his ass off for so blatantly copying its platform down to the smallest detail.

  58. 58.

    Soprano2

    @Gin & Tonic:  You can Google Ivanka before and after pictures, which show just how much work she’s had done. So the answer is no, those lips are not natural. Neither is most of the rest of her face.

    Edited to put in a Pinterest link to the before and after pics.

  60. 60.

    germy shoemangler

    @artem1s:

    Pre-plastic surgery photos of Ivanka, she looks like a regular person with a puffy nose and receding chin.  She’s remade herself into the image of an aryan “goddess” but unsucessfully.

    Jared had some work done, too.  I think he wanted better cheekbones or something.  But he unfortunately showed a photo of the Ken doll to the surgeon.

  61. 61.

    Tony Jay

    It’s probably been stated repeatedly here and elsewhere, but it’s only just sunk into my well-shielded cranium that the major task of these hearings is to erase the convenient dividing line drawn between the events of Jan 6th (mob violence, so shocking) and the wider effort to turn the delegitimization of the 2020 Election into a standard shibboleth of GOP ideology (politics ain’t beanbag, etc).

    There is no dividing line. It’s all of a piece. Republicans who buy into the delegitimization, who voted against convicting Trump during his 2nd Impeachment, who are even today spewing ugly rhetoric about the partisan nature of the hearings, are just as much a part of the coup attempt as the Proud Boys and that prick with the Bison Hairnet.

    January 6th wasn’t a discrete event. It wasn’t the coup attempt. It was just the most obvious part of a huge open conspiracy against American democracy that’s still ongoing and gearing up to make another lunge for power in 2024 if it’s not recognised and exposed and stopped dead in its tracks.

    So, yeah, pretty important business afoot.

  64. 64.

    O. Felix Culpa

    Marcy Wheeler has a nice twitter summary/commentary on the hearings. Make that a live tweet. Example (LC=Liz Cheney):

    LC: President Trump summoned the mob, assembled the mob, and lit the flame of this attack.

    [Key line for lead paragraphs delivered at 8:19PM so the press can start working on their stories, a trick she learned from her Dad.]

  67. 67.

    Frank Wilhoit

    There are two wrong notes in your penultimate graf.  The first is the word “autocrat” and the second is the name “Trump”.  None of this is, or has been about Trump, or about any of his imaginable or unimaginable individual successors.  It is all, exactly, and only about the Republican Party.  It is a waste of energy, a misdirection, and a category error to talk about Trump — or about any individual politician.  None of them exist.  Only parties exist.

  68. 68.

    Geminid

    @Betty Cracker: These hearings will spur a lot of turbulence in trump world and the “larger” world of Republicans. That alone may be consequential. We’ll see who and what shakes loose.

  73. 73.

    La Nonna

    Watching a day later from Italy, very good job on all of it, evidence, tone, video clips, testimony … after spending so much time in fear of so much cover-up, it’s encouraging to see the committee’s work.  A great start, really looking forward to the rest.

  74. 74.

    germy shoemangler

    Chaz Tulin, a 32-year-old freelance computer programmer, had similar issues. Not long after Tulin arrived in Israel from Saratoga Springs, N.Y., his father had a stroke that left him immobile and required full-time care. Sued for his father’s medical bills, Tulin lost everything and ended up on the streets. While he eventually posted a request on Keep Olim in Israel for help in finding temporary lodging, for most of his time on the streets he acted as something of a voyeur, following along as other new immigrants poured out their woes on the internet.

    “It helped me when I was homeless to see people dealing with hardships in Israel,” he said.

    https://jewishchronicle.timesofisrael.com/social-media-groups-are-helping-new-immigrants-navigate-life-in-israel/

    Tulin is a Proud Boy. He has accounts on Gab, etc. He wears a “Black Guns Matter” shirt.

    During last night’s hearings, a proud boy said their membership increased after Trump’s “stand by” statement. I suspect their numbers are still increasing. I hope these hearings and the DOJ put a stop to that.

  75. 75.

    Geminid

    @O. Felix Culpa: Wheeler’s twitter commentary is really good. She’s studied these cases intensively, so she has a lot of the background to Committee testimony at her fingertips and can provide context.

  76. 76.

    Steve in the ATL

    @Tony Jay: it would be libeling, not slandering.

    Wait a minute—I’m not getting paid for this lawyering.  Never mind—slander away!

  77. 77.

    Frank Wilhoit

    @Tony Jay: The parallel is this.  Once the dust has settled (150 — 200 years), what Trump and Flobalob™ will each be remembered for is breaking a treaty, and the consequences thereof.

  79. 79.

    Wag

    @Bruce K in ATH-GR: 

    f she comes to the conclusion many of us have reached, that the Republican Party is too far gone to be allowed to survive in a democratic America, what will she choose?

    I think she has already made the choice. She’s going to burn it all down.

  80. 80.

    Tony G

    @germy: My dog ate a bee a few years ago (with predictable results).  The dog didn’t look as bad as Greenwald or Kushner.

  81. 81.

    Betty Cracker

    @Geminid: Thank you — seems like I read something about the Gaetz pardon angle (and hanging Greenberg out to dry) a while back, now that you mention it. I sure hope the prosecutors get a solid case against Gaetz if they go light on Greenberg. Greenberg’s behavior was so egregiously corrupt and criminal in its own right that he deserves decades in jail. I can see where he’d be a problematic witness, but according to some details that have dribbled out, it sounds like Greenberg and Gaetz were so careless in committing their crimes (paying people off using Venmo, etc.) that hopefully they screwed themselves. Both are the rotten, arrogant spawn of fat cats, so no surprises there. They’re used to daddy buying their way out of trouble.

  84. 84.

    Tony G

    @Ohio Mom: Jesus, the photos of those two.  I like to believe that evil people are essentially unhappy people.  Those photos are evidence supporting that notion.

  85. 85.

    MisterDancer

    So, I’m pretty angry this AM. And it’s not all at the assholes who are attacking democracy.

    I feel like we — the media, the public, all of us — are so addicted to spectacle, to “one and done” solutions that fit within our knowledge and understanding, that “slow and steady wins the race” gets lost.

    SeditionTrack on twitter actually asked why “Garland” hasn’t rounded up every Proud Boy with a “provable crime,”  yet. And I see similar in too many comments, that this Hearing means nothing because “Trump’s not in jail.”

    Yeah, and if they throw him in jail, and he gets out on some dumb-ass technicality — a Trump specialty with the kinds of lawyers he racks up with — what then?

    As much as I respect Rep. Schiff, I think he and others are operating out of the conviction that the facts speak for themselves. And they do — in Hearings, in the media.

    But as many marginalized people’ll tell you, the facts can get it twisted right quick in front of a cranky judge, or the wrong jury. Much less a “Conservative” SCOTUS majority that’ll seek any justification to keep their side in power. Any hint of the kind of politicization attacks that this Committee has unfairly endured, will cause issues when it goes to trial.

    But that facts this Committee has developed, can and will go into the DoJ cases. And that’s why it’s depressing, what SeditionTrack said — they know, from what they can see, how complex it is to unwind these networks, to build cases of not just trespassing and other “day-of” charges, but the larger sedition and plotting charges that entrap a Trump and his cronies. The work this Committee is not equipped to do, frankly.

    That’s key — the size of this damned coup attempt. The massive comms, troves of data, and unwinding that needs to happen. Watergate was tiny by comparison, and it still took months for the FBI to investigate and empanel a Grand Jury for what looked to be “just” a politically-motivated break-in.

    A full, proper investigation, swimming upstream against a sea of political malfeasance ongoing to the day, and a host of media disinterested in accountability? Done right, this is years of work, just to build the cases.

    The Committee’s work helps clear that path, by showing how Power was abused. By underlining for those still in power that they are being watched, their sins known, and that approaching the DoJ has a cost.

    The DoJ, in return, is slowly rounding up people who they can tie clear changes too. And my sense is that they are doing so, in order to gain information on who directed them. Gaining information on the networks, some of which are likely decades in the making, that allowed coordination of the Insurrection, and all that came before and after.

    This is the thing we don’t talk about, and it’s breaking me because we are losing heart and hope and connections to each other, and the true scope of this horror show, as a result. And I think we — the ordinary people — should talk about how big and brutal it must be to resolve it, because if we actually give a fuck about keeping this Democracy, we need to actually talk about the real work it takes  to keep it, not simply the stuff we can saw we “told them what to do, and they didn’t do it.”

    And if, in fact, Garland and the DoJ are dragging heels? Then saying, out loud,  what the work should entail can push them in ways that just demanding they “do something!” will not.

    Anyway. I might FP this, after I chew on it. I might be ego-bound (I sure as hell ain’t no Lawyer!) but I think this is important to say.

  87. 87.

    Kay

    Carla Sands
    @CarlaHSands
    I’ve seen this before. In Denmark, middle class people can’t afford to drive a car. They have a bike and take the train for long trips. My embassy driver would bike an hour in the snow to get to work. That’s the future team Biden wants for Americans. Is this what you want?

    Trump’s former ambassador to Denmark. The responses from Danes are very funny. It’s all joyful families riding bikes.
    How does one be “the ambassador to Denmark” and not realize the bicycles are a big part of their culture and that they’re all proud of it? They’re literally in a bike cart or on a bike since birth.

  89. 89.

    Immanentize

    @Tony G: only after 1941. Only after Germany invaded the Soviet Union. Only after we supplied money, guns and butter (as the saying goes) in vast quantities to prop Stalin up.

    Joke in Russia: “Patriots know Russian history starts in 1941. Traitors say is begins in 1939.”

  90. 90.

    Baud

    @Kay:

    Plus, a lot of Americans would want that, although the geographic differences between the U.S. and Denmark make it harder.

  92. 92.

    Kay

    Oh, she’ll pay for going after the bikes.

    Erlend Friestad
    @erlendfri
    1h
    Replying to
    @CarlaHSands
    But have you been to Norway? We are much poorer than the Danes. Even the Crown Prince and Princes are forced to use bike.

  95. 95.

    Geminid

    @Betty Cracker: Greenberg is now divorced, on the hook for over a million dollars restitution to Seminole County, and sitting in the Orange County jail pending his sentencing. An associate faces sentencing from the same judge as Greenberg’s later this month, on two felony counts (one is for distribution of Adderall). This man’s attorney let journalists know that he could testify against Gaetz.

    Also, court watchers spotted Gaetz’s former girlfriend entering the federal grand jury room a couple months ago. We’ll find out before too long if prosecutors have the goods on Gaetz. They’ll have to wrap him up tight, because Gaetz’s father has hired top-notch defense attorneys.

  96. 96.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    I thought it was amazing. The parents on bikes with the carts taking little kids to daycare/school – whole groups of them at street crossings- were really something. They’re almost smug about it- they think it’s great.

  98. 98.

    Soprano2

    I’m listening to it now; I was unable to listen last night because I did a 5K for Lost and Found Grief Center. I do it every year because they helped me after my sister died; I wish there had been something like them when my father died when I was 21. So far it’s calm and matter of fact, which is a lot better than the yelling at Republican hearings. I love all the TFG people saying his stuff about the election being stolen is a bunch of crap. You know that’s driving him crazy.

  99. 99.

    BC in Illinois

    On the subjects of pictures from last night’s hearing, Marcy Wheeler [ emptywheel ] placed a picture of Ivanka T (long straight blonde hair) next to a picture of Liz C (shoulder-length wavy blonde hair), with the caption:

    This quick cut from one famous blonde daughter to another was striking to me.

  100. 100.

    Betty Cracker

    @MisterDancer: Seems like more reps are getting impatient with the DOJ; it’s not only Schiff. Here’s a report from CNN just a couple of days ago:

    “None of it makes sense to me,” Democratic Rep. Jim Clyburn of South Carolina told CNN of Garland’s approach. “You can’t take politics out of politics. All of these things happening around us are happening within the realm of the political process. You just do your job as best you can, and you can’t go around second-guessing what may or may not be political.”

    Garland’s pace, Democratic Rep. Ruben Gallego of Arizona told CNN, could come at an enormous cost for the country.

    “I’m just not seeing the urgency from the attorney general,” said Gallego. “He’s thinking more about protecting the institution of the Department of Justice. And I appreciate that, but he has to be thinking about protecting the institution of democracy.”

    Maybe the fact that the committee has uncovered so much with a tiny fraction of the resources the DOJ has plays into this. I don’t know.

  101. 101.

    JCJ

    @Kay: Perhaps this former ambassador never went to the city hall square (Rådhuspladsen) to get a weather forecast from the girl with a bicycle.

    Or maybe that just proves his point!  They can’t even afford a TV or radio to get the weather forecast!  They have to rely on the Girl on the Bicycle!

  104. 104.

    Ken

    @Tony Jay: All that money, all that work, and she still looks a display model for Amazon’s Complimentary Pre-inflated Companion range.

    Maybe that was the goal all along?

  105. 105.

    geg6

    @germy shoemangler:

    It’s creepy, I know, but I just think Jared actually is a Ken doll.  With all the anatomical weirdness that comes with that.  I question how they had children.

  107. 107.

    Ken

    @Wag: I think she has already made the choice. She’s going to burn it all down.

    I don’t see her as an arsonist. Cheneys are generally the knife in the back by way of careful press leaks, with the occasional shotgun blast in the face (but made to look like a hunting accident).

  111. 111.

    WaterGirl

    @Geminid: And what about the young brother of the “fiance”?  There’s a story there, for sure.  I thought a “live boy” was supposed to be the only thing that could take a Republican down!

  113. 113.

    Steeplejack

    @Betty Cracker:

    I haven’t checked yet this morning, but Twitter was chortling late last night that Glem went completely silent yesterday. Hmm . . .

  115. 115.

    terraformer

    Watching that, I found myself at extremes – sometimes tearing up, sometimes seething, seething with rage

  117. 117.

    Layer8Problem

    Hop onto BJ first thing and get those two slapped across one’s face like a haddock:  a twit with a face that looks like he was born sneering and someone who looks like she was assembled in a laboratory in Japan:  the “smart ones” in the Trump Crime Family.

  121. 121.

    NotMax

    Feel ought to mention again (too early in the a.m. here to bother bringing out the helmet and pick to go excavating for it again, have to trust me a confirmatory link was given here some years back) that the official title of the office she held, as listed on a roster of White House positions and their pay was listed as “First Daughter.”

    Which raises the question of what might have happened should he have become incapacitated for any reason. Would the slot have been filled with an Acting First Daughter?

  124. 124.

    Geminid

    @Wakeshift: I hope Nestor remains out of the news, and has a good life. And I hope his adoptive father goes  to prison for a long, long time.

  125. 125.

    Gary K

    [T]hat pair of photos should illustrate dictionary definitions of “Uncanny Valley.”

    I’m still picking myself up off the floor, Betty! Thanks!

  126. 126.

    dnfree

    @Tony Jay:  You hit that nail exactly on the head with a well-aimed hammer. The Republicans only want to look at January 6 in isolation. This is an attempt to tie the room together, so to speak.

    ETA bonus points for using the correct “discrete”.

  127. 127.

    UncleEbeneezer

    I’m deeply disappointed in how few people are talking about the hearings in the Normie part of my FB world. The complete freaking apathy of so much of our Electorate is going to be the god-damn death of this country/planet, I swear. (all the angry emojis…)

    And NO, IT’S NOT DEMOCRATIC MESSAGING THAT’S THE PROBLEM!!!

    Sorry, just needed to vent. Good morning everyone, lol…

  128. 128.

    MisterDancer

    @Betty Cracker: Maybe the fact that the committee has uncovered so much with a tiny fraction of the resources the DOJ has plays into this.

    Maybe? Although I think of the Committee as having different resourcing — less, but more direct access to “the top,” if you will.

    I 100% get the fear, it’s real and valid. But…there are mechanisms outside public griping the house can use to understand more about what the DoJ is doing. It’s…curious that hasn’t occurred, yet.

  130. 130.

    livewyre

    @MisterDancer: Yeah, it makes me wonder if there’s a play in mind to get out in front of the anxiety and impatience; to follow from ahead, so to speak. Echoing (representing!) the sentiments they’re no doubt bombarded with, while still pursuing their own scope of work. That would be the hope.

  131. 131.

    mrmoshpotato

    I see you masochists enjoyed the hearings last night.  Can’t really endure them at the moment. :)

  132. 132.

    Betty Cracker

    @MisterDancer: Maybe they understand it all too well, hence the public griping. I hope that’s not it, but the institutionalist impulse is bone-deep. Here’s something Eric Holder said last month:

    “I’m an institutionalist. My initial thought was not to indict the former president out of concern of how divisive it would be. But given what we have learned, I think that he probably has to be held accountable.”

    I like Holder, but his initial thought as described above is appalling. It’s not the AG’s job to apply the law based on how divisive they think prosecution would be. That notion makes a mockery of equality under the law and the idea of accountability. I get that equality under the law is an aspiration and far from reality, but ye gods…

  133. 133.

    Soprano2

    @Kay: In most parts of the U.S. riding a bike or walking or using public transportation is seen as a sign that you’re too poor to have a car. That’s how people here see it, although I haven’t looked at the busses lately to see how full they are. Gas is up to $4.49 here; it’s gone up $0.20 in the past three days! The last time it got high like this bus ridership and car pooling got popular.

  136. 136.

    West of the Rockies

    Ivanka: blank and pitiless…
    Jared: smug and clueless… (and what an ugly-ass mouth!)

  137. 137.

    Bill Arnold

    @Bruce K in ATH-GR:

    If she comes to the conclusion many of us have reached, that the Republican Party is too far gone to be allowed to survive in a democratic America, what will she choose?

    She will choose destruction (or exile to the wilderness) for the Trumpist parts of the Republican party, if it comes to that.
    I respect her commitment to ruthlessness.

  138. 138.

    Ruckus

    @There go two miscreants: 
    I’m sorry, a dog turd on the kitchen floor?
    No.
    That’s like walking into the kitchen and stepping in a sea of dog diarrhea. In your bare feet. And hungry. At least you were. Knowing that you may never be able to ever eat again after seeing that should have a further effect upon your actual health. It does mine, knowing that there are things like that walking around on 2 feet. And people give them money. Likely to make them go away, but still.

  139. 139.

    Bill Arnold

    @Tony Jay:
    I was surprised to see this.
    CNN (Brian Stelter) commits meta-journalism, quite well:
    Here’s how Fox and Newsmax tried to spin the January 6 committee’s first prime-time hearing (Brian Stelter, June 10, 2022)

    This column is about the media, and this moment exemplifies America’s two parallel tracks of media.
    …
    Carlson declared that the “ruling class” was giving “yet another lecture about January 6.” He called the hearing “propaganda” and reveled in his refusal to air it. “They are lying,” he said, “and we are not going to help them do it.”
    Carlson then lied himself: He said “if something noteworthy happens” at the hearing, “obviously we will bring it to you immediately.” But his show did not do that.
    When Thompson said January 6 was “the culmination of an attempted coup,” Carlson asked why the news media cared at all.
    …
    Carlson sounded like an amateur magician who tries to distract kids when a performance falls apart: “Look over here, not over there.”

  140. 140.

    Ruckus

    @O. Felix Culpa:

    I believe that she is a conservative, but not a new school one, which actually is extremely old school conservative. The kind that believes that the world will fall out of the sky if they can’t fuck over everyone that doesn’t look and think like they do, that the world requires complete and absolute devotion to one concept of power. She is mid school conservative, she wants a known, structured world but understands that she can not be so rigid because there are many other shades of life than the perfect one she envisions and that not every one will agree with her. That she has to work to show her vision and she has to work to see other visions. IOW she has to get along in the world, not kill off everyone she doesn’t like. People like SFB and his kind who want everyone to be only one vision of hate and give me money. She allows that not all may agree with her, they want to shoot everyone that doesn’t. It isn’t as subtle a difference as it sounds.

  141. 141.

    kalakal

    @Soprano2:  yes, I get some odd remarks about that. Having spent so many years in the UK/Netherlands etc my first choice is walk/public transport/bike, I actually dislike driving. Nothing to do with the money on my part, I prefer it

  142. 142.

    Ruckus

    @Betty Cracker:

    I assumed that was what she smeared on her face regularly, pigeon shit. She seems the type that would like the smell…. and that pale white glow.

  143. 143.

    Ruckus

    @germy shoemangler:

    Having actually been a part of manufacturing Mattel doll molds I can attest that they resemble Ken and Barbie more than actual humans. At least they seemingly wanted to resemble them. I think they failed on all counts.

  144. 144.

    Ruckus

    @MisterDancer:

    I think you are right. But.

    As the old saying goes, the wheels of justice grind slowly, often way too slowly. But not everyone at the DOJ is going to be on the side of “Get them!” And as this is a gigantic mess of stupid and I’d say actual treason, it will take time to sort out. Americans are used to TV drama, not necessarily real life drama. I think the hearing last night was very necessary for the country, for democracy, and for the American people. I think that the committee sees that, understands that, I think the committee was right in bringing in someone to, hell, be a director, to stage this most important of shows. And I think that any exposure like you are talking about is good, because many/most of us go through life without actually knowing how our country runs. Or doesn’t.

    You may bring a different point of view or light from a different direction and that is never a bad thing, because being secure in our little boxes is a huge part of having an operating democracy as big as this one is. We have to understand that while each of our little boxes is/can be a good thing, it’s all the little boxes that make up a democracy, make it work or not, not just what is in our own little box.

  145. 145.

    Ruckus

    @Ken:

    I think she’s more savvy than her dad. Like she can actually believe she isn’t god’s gift to mankind.

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